There, a local shipowner was quietly laying the foundations for the most ambitious luxury tourism development in Greece.
Though I grew up in Greece, I had never been to Messene.
When I visited last September, only a handful of people were rambling among the ruins.
Olive and cypress trees shade the terraces of the Mandarin Oriental, Costa Navarino.Credit:Margarita Nikitaki
Countless archaeological digs in Greece progress in slow fits and starts because of funding and staffing issues.
Themelis, who died in October, was undaunted by such obstacles.
Starting in the mid 1980s, he slowly bought up almost 2,500 acres of land.
A road through the olive groves of Messinia.Margarita Nikitaki
The name of this new coastal development was Costa Navarino.
My golf course will be like walking into a Monet painting.
Fast-forward 13 years and surprisingly little has changed.
From left: Tuna tartare at Barbouni restaurant, in Costa Navarino’s Romanos hotel; Neo Kastro, a castle in Pylos that overlooks Navarino Bay.Margarita Nikitaki
However, a lot has happened at Costa Navarino.
All 99 suites and villas at the Mandarin Oriental, Costa Navarino, have head-on views of the bay.
But the true flavor of Messinia came from the kitchen.
The ruins of Ancient Messene’s site that, until the 1980s, was covered over by farmland.Margarita Nikitaki
Real life seemed to take precedence over the trappings of tourism there.
Messinia is a habitat for hundreds of species of flora and fauna.
I worry about who will produce our food ten years from now, Stribacu said.
From left: An olive-oil tasting at the Mandarin Oriental; lounging on the resort’s beach.Margarita Nikitaki
Smart, regenerative farming is very different from what our mom and dad did.
Agriculture is also about entrepreneurship now.
Otherwise, its not sustainable.
From left: The horseshoe-shaped Voidokilia Beach, in the Greek Peloponnese; columns at the site of Ancient Messene.Margarita Nikitaki
One of its simplest initiatives is to protect rare local crop varieties, such as heirloom tomatoes.
Ive never tasted a sweeter, fleshier tomato than the Chondrokatsari variety served at the taverna in Ithomi.
The two adjacent resorts at Navarino Dunes are primarily tailored toward families and golfers.
From left: Pizza Sapienza, one of the restaurants at the Mandarin Oriental; paddleboarding off Voidokilia Beach.Margarita Nikitaki
The Agora is sandwiched between theW Costa Navarinoand theMandarin Oriental, Costa Navarino.
From left: Café culture in the nearby town of Pylos; fresh figs at the market in Pylos.Margarita Nikitaki
From left: Golden hour in a Mandarin Oriental guest room; the Westin Resort, Costa Navarino, where painstaking efforts were made to preserve the olive trees growing on site.Margarita Nikitaki
From left: The mouth of Nestor’s Cave, above Voidokilia Beach; on the road from Koroni to Pylos.Margarita Nikitaki
